“The only reason we gave Pepsi the music was because they were going to use the song anyway. They would have just recut it with studio musicians, like they do for some TV movies because they can’t use the original.

"If they use the original recording, they’ve got to pay, but if they don’t, all they do is give credit to the artist and then pay the studio cats.

"Pepsi told us they were going to do that, so we said, ‘Hey wait a minute, we might as well get the money.’ I ain’t that proud, you know. I’m not going to say, ‘No, go ahead, rip us off. And keep the money, too!’”

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As much as I love Eddie's guitar playing and his awesome songs/music he (like Led Zeppelin) scarfed a lot of licks from other players. As an example find a copy of Johnny Winters' live performance of "Frankenstein" from 1973 and if you listen to the solo section you may be very surprised how much of it sounds exactly like "Eruption"..! (Guess Ed isn't as original as everyone thought...)

Doesn't that always seem to be the case when someone talks about putting something on an album that wasn't supposed to be or didn't plan on using it for an album; it always turns out to be the hit. Ed Van Halen talking about "Eruption" and basically the track is just a demo or warm up. it isn't even considered by him to be his best work and yet it totally blows right out of the water every bit of garbage people pass off as great nowadays.

I think many players get it wrong on what makes guys like Eddie great. You get a set of chords to work with and create something that supports the singer and the music.
Shredding is boring and only to impress people at Guitar Center but to take some chords and create a riff is impressive.
I love listening to the rhythm side of Ed.

I think those who are critical of him just want him to reinvent the wheel he created. Why? It's nothing new under the sun.

I think it's become chic to hate on EVH. When the praise for one thing becomes so overwhelming, it's human nature for some to go the other way intentionally.
But this cat deserves all the accolades doled out to him in spades ! It's disgusting how good he is. Anyone that tries to paint him as a shredder, or a one trick pony, has no clue what they're talking about. Ed's tone, timing, and rythym playing, are what sets him apart from so many.
Listen to Fair Warning through a good set of headphones, and tell me this guy is average, or was just in the right place, at the right time.
Just accept, that no matter what style of music you love, there are guys that just changed the game forever, Eddie is one of those guys, like it or not.

While it may have become the popular notion to hate on Eddie, it is not unwarranted. In the early years and into the early 90's, a lot of what you said about Eddie rings true. And anyone of us that play that tries to say he wasn't influenced by him in one way or another, is a bold faced liar. If you grew up in that time period, you were in awe of what he could do, and what he did was amazing and ground breaking.
Having said that, Eddie has been the exact opposite the last 20yrs or so. He's been a hateful, drunken embarrassment, and has more or less taken one of the most iconic bands of our time period and made it a joke. You need only look to the HOF induction, the NAMM video when he looked like he was 2 days in a 4 day bender and screwed the fans that paid extra to get their amp heads signed by him (his "excuse", "I got s**t to do, sorry"), completely back-doored Michael Anthony, made a revolving door out of the lead singer role, screwed every single person who bought a ticket to the Hagar reunion shows where he was so drunk and stoned he could barely play, and the best the band could do recently was an album regurgitated B-sides from the 70's. So while yes, a lot of people do seem to hate Eddie just to hate. He deserves the lion's share of it.